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Sunday, April 15, 2007

IS THIS THE END OF BLOGGING?

When I tried to get Al-Jazeerah, one of my favourite sites (see Special Links), this was all I could get.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Dear Readers, Al-Jazeerah.info has been a US independent forum promoting peace between the US and the Arab and Muslim worlds and between Israelis and Palestinians, for the last five years. The Editor of Al-Jazeerah has concluded that he cannot do this job at this time. He decided to stop the publication for now hoping to resume it when conditions change in a later time. Thanks for the readers' support.

It seems the Editor, seeing the writing on the wall in America regarding honest blogging, has departed the scene before he ends up in jail.

Unfortunately, another serious blog that deals with issues of consequence has been sunk by the gagging legislation of a right-wing Government while blogs which peddle trivia or gossip or sleaze or who construct their posts principally from the literary efforts and ideas of other bloggers get laughable awards!

Such deep irony. Such terrible implications for freedom and democracy.

8 comments:

It is a concern, Lil. Since the media generally is in bed with rightwing Governments bloggers are the only source of balanced information and debate. Closing us down allows Governments to control what we know and therefore how we think!

You may find this post to be of interest, regarding your topic. I used to worry about government "interference" occasionally, as I tend to be quite controversial at times, but I realized I was a nobody. Preaching to a small choir may one day save my life.

We could organize I guess, but that ISP just has to pull the plug, and we're going nowhere fast.....

We are in a vulnerable position, FWY. The powers that be can wipe us off the map in a couple of days. After all, how many bloggers have got the funds to fight a legal battle against their own government no matter how corrupt it is?

It's interesting to see where all of this will go, as it's obvious, since people aren't reading the newspapers like ever before, and accepting "new?" off their TVs, that something will happen here over time.

There's just too many people calling it like it is, and this has never been done before, to such a huge audience.

Imagine though if even the poorest people had access to a computer and would speak out also?!

I wish I had your faith, Coffee. I'm rather sceptical about the ability of the ordinary person to think clearly about what is happening in the world let alone be brave enought to stand up to their government.